Neighbours lose everything in fire

A FAMILY of seven and a neighbour lost everything they owned when their semidetached homes went up in flames yesterday morning.

Within just a few minutes, the two adjoining properties in De Kock Street, Kensington, were gutted while firefighters struggled to contain the blaze fuelled by strong winds.

Perre Esterhuizen was at his home on the corner of Mary Boyd Avenue and De Kock Street with his three young children, aged four, three and six months, when the drama started just before 10am.

His other child, aged six, was at school at the time.

“I was inside the house playing with the baby on the bed when my two sons came to tell me there was something [at] my car’s tyre,” he said.

“I went to look and it was a tortoise, which I took to my neighbour.”

He said he had gone back home to make porridge for the children.

“My son came to me [in the kitchen] and said there was smoke in the living room,” a shaken Esterhuizen said.

“I went to look and the living room was full of smoke so I grabbed the children and ran out the house.

“Basically our whole life was in that house.”

Esterhuizen’s wife, Yolandi Claasen, 35, was at work when she got the call to say their house was on fire.

She and her family have been living in the property for the past 10 years.

Juan Claasen, 43, who owns the property his sister and her family live in, said he had moved back there a week ago after the people who were sharing the home with his sister’s family left without warning.

Claasen was at work when he received a call about the fire.

“My friend was passing the house and saw the fire. He called me to tell me my house was on fire,” he said.

As the family watched, large plumes of smoke billowed out of the two houses while three fire engines lined the streets, dowsing the flames.

Charlotte Harrison, 45, who lives next door to the Claasens in Mary Boyd Avenue, said two minutes after Esterhuizen brought her the tortoise a friend of hers had come to her house to tell her about the fire.

“I told her ‘don’t joke with me’,” she said – but when she opened her back door there was just smoke. No one was injured in the blaze. The officer in charge of the scene, Vincent Human, said the flames had been brought under control within an hour of firefighters responding.

The cause of the fire was still under investigation, he said.

Police spokeswoman Colonel Priscilla Naidu said no foul play was suspected and the fire department would do its own investigation.